Paraesthesia: .NET Development and Some Pictures of My Cat

Griswold Family Christmas

I watched Christmas
Vacation
last night, one of the regular movies in my holiday rotation, and as I
watched it, I realized something.

My dad is Clark W. Griswold.

Okay, so maybe he doesn’t staple himself to the house when putting up
lights or walk around in the attic and drop through the ceiling of the
room downstairs - he’s usually very careful about things - but, by and
large, it’s Dad.

Like when they find the squirrel in the tree and it jumps out at Clark
and the whole family runs around the house screaming? That’s Dad. Or the
plan to catch the squirrel in the coat and smack it with the hammer?
Dad.

Running around with an electrical diagram of how the lights on the
house all wire together? Dad.

Dad doesn’t say stuff under his breath the way Clark does, but he’s
thinking it. Like when Cousin Eddie is talking to Clark in the living
room and Clark says, “Can I refill your egg nog for ya? Get ya something
to eat? Drive you out to the middle of nowhere and leave you for dead?”
I don’t think Dad would actually say that out loud. We’d hear that
later, once Cousin Eddie was out of the room.

When the lights on the house don’t light up and Clark kicks the crap
out of the plastic reindeer and Santa? Ooooh, Dad.

I think the epitome of my dad, though, is when Clark goes
off
after finding out his Christmas bonus is a membership in the Jelly of
the Month club:

Hey! If any of you are looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me,
I have one. I’d like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I
want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody
Lane with all the other rich people and I want him brought right here,
with a big ribbon on his head, and I want to look him straight in the
eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten,
four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred,
overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless,
dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged,
spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is! Hallelujah! Holy
shit! Where’s the Tylenol?

That’s my dad.

A little anecdote. Picture this:

A small house in the country. One-story ranch. Surrounded by a
fair-sized yard and a lot of trees. Next door neighbor’s a quarter mile
down the road.

The guy is checking out this swarm of bees that seems to be coming from
a hole in the ground. No, wait, not just bees, but hornets. The
hornets have themselves a nest in the ground in the backyard.

He thinks about it for a while and heads to the garage. He comes back
out with a cup of gasoline and some matches.

I think you see where this is going.

He dumps the gas down the hornet nest hole, drops the match, and runs.
A reasonable cloud of fire jumps out of the hole, followed by a very
angry cloud of hornets. That cloud of hornets proceeds to chase the guy
around the house, like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon.

That’s my dad. And I couldn’t love him any more than I already do.
He’s the best.